


I got you.

by lackluster_lexicon



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Docking, Goodbye Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 09:32:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16658618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lackluster_lexicon/pseuds/lackluster_lexicon
Summary: They found themselves in what used to be Steve’s office, now Tony’s, though he hadn’t changed much of anything in it except the height of the office chair. Tony took a seat in that chair now, elbows on his knees, as Steve leaned a hip against the desk and crossed his arms. Both of them bowed their heads for a while; from the outside looking in, they may have looked as though they were praying.Steve spoke first.“You’re right,” he said. “You need to use the Gauntlet.”Tony’s head snapped up, and for a moment, he looked almost panicked. But when he met Steve’s eyes, Steve wore a small, crooked smile.“But you also need to stay,” Steve said.





	I got you.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written as a thank you fic on [Tumblr](http://usenecessaryforce.tumblr.com/post/178058501263/i-cannot-thank-yall-enough-for-reblogging-my), but now with fewer typos (I hope). As always, concrit is welcome and encouraged~

They had the Gauntlet, and now, they had a decision to make. Those that remained after the final battle had largely fallen into two camps: destroy the Gauntlet now and move forward, or use the Gauntlet to return the people Thanos had snapped away at the possible cost of whoever ended up wielding it. Given the stakes, they’d all somehow agreed to take a half-hour recess before casting their final votes on what had to be done.

Perhaps even more miraculously – or very predictably, depending on who you asked – Tony and Steve wandered off together. Neither of them saw Rhodey and Natasha watching them as they departed, nor the solemn glance they exchanged as they reckoned with the decision they already knew the two men were going to make.

—

They found themselves in what used to be Steve’s office, now Tony’s, though he hadn’t changed much of anything in it except the height of the office chair. Tony took a seat in that chair now, elbows on his knees, as Steve leaned a hip against the desk and crossed his arms. Both of them bowed their heads for a while; from the outside looking in, they may have looked as though they were praying.

Steve spoke first.

“You’re right,” he said. “You need to use the Gauntlet.”

Tony’s head snapped up, and for a moment, he looked almost panicked. But when he met Steve’s eyes, Steve wore a small, crooked smile.

“But you also need to stay,” Steve said.

Tony started to shake his head. Steve unfurled his arms and lowered himself to his knees in front of Tony, wrapped his hands along the outside of Tony’s thighs.

“It’s okay,” he said.

Tony grabbed hold of Steve’s elbows.

“We don’t know that’s how it works!” Tony said. “Maybe no one has to go!”

“Thor hasn’t been wrong about any of this yet,” Steve said. “Nebula knows more than any of us about the Stones. If they’re right…”

Steve paused for a moment. Tony shook his head again. 

“If the cost of using the Soul Stone is one of us so you can bring everyone else back,” Steve said, softly but firmly, “then we have to be prepared for that.”

Tony’s eyes screwed shut, and he dropped his chin again. Steve leaned forward and pressed his mouth to the crown of Tony’s head.

“It’s okay,” he said again, this time into Tony’s hair. “This is my choice.”

Tony’s shoulders shuddered as his grip tightened around Steve’s arms, and Steve released Tony’s legs to wrap his arms around Tony, who slid out of the chair and onto the floor. He hid his face against Steve’s neck, still rocking his head side-to-side, and began to sob in earnest. Steve swallowed against the burning in his own throat, closed his eyes as his vision began to blur, but didn’t release Tony as his own tears began to trickle down his jaw toward Tony’s hair.

“You’re going to bring her back,” Steve said, “and you’re going to get married.”

Something shifted then – not just Tony in Steve’s arms, but the inevitability of what they’d just decided, what it meant for this moment now. They had twenty-five minutes to air out their past ten years, but before Tony had even raised his head again, Steve had already decided that the time for talk had come and gone, and he could sense that Tony had as well.

He wrapped a hand behind Tony’s neck and kissed him, harder and longer than he certainly had any right to, and Tony kissed him back, harder and longer than Steve certainly deserved – and when they broke apart, albeit barely, a breathy “sorry” slipped past Steve’s lips, even as he kept his forehead pressed to Tony’s.

Tony laughed quietly.

“Me, too.”

He pushed Steve’s shoulders back, just far enough for Tony to straddle his legs. Steve shuffled his knees apart, got one arm around Tony’s waist and his other hand under Tony’s ass, and let his eyes slide shut as Tony closed his fists in Steve’s hair.

“Too bad I don’t have time for a shave,” Steve said thickly as Tony slid his jaw along Steve’s.

“You do look pretty rough,” Tony said. He pulled Steve’s head back without any resistance from Steve; Steve answered by tightening his hold on Tony.

“Thanks.”

Steve leaned forward and lowered Tony to his back on the floor, releasing him only to push the office chair away before sliding both of his hands under Tony’s shirt and up his stomach to his chest.

“I trimmed up this morning,” Steve said. He began to trail a line of rough, open-mouthed kisses up Tony’s abdomen. “Best shower I’ve had in years.”

“Shut up,” Tony said suddenly. Steve started to sit up, but Tony crossed his ankles behind Steve’s ass, reached up and pulled Steve back down by the collar of his uniform until he was laying flush on top of Tony – and then, finally, Steve let himself feel the urgency Tony had been trying to suppress and rocked his hips against Tony’s, kissed Tony until he himself started to feel lightheaded, paused to pull his gloves off with his teeth and slide a hand under Tony’s waistband. Tony seemed to be trying to remove the top of Steve’s uniform, but he also seemed reluctant to put space between them again, so after a few seconds he seemed satisfied with returning his hands to Steve’s hair.

“I wanna – ” Tony sighed roughly. “I know we don’t – there’s not much time – ”

“I got you,” Steve said. 

He raised himself up far enough to get a hand between them and, with Tony’s help, free both of their cocks. Tony was only half-hard but reached for Steve instead of himself, which Steve belayed by gently brushing his hand away.

“Can I…?”

Steve took both of their heads in his hand – Tony’s cut, Steve’s intact – and closed his fingers around them. He wouldn’t be able to manage this single-handed, and he wasn’t even sure he could put words to what he wanted, but Tony didn’t need him to; he took his own cock in hand and nodded as fervently as he could in the small space between them, almost as fervently as he was jerking himself off.

“It’s okay,” Steve murmured. “You don’t have to come. I just want…”

“Yeah,” Tony said, almost more breath than voice. “Yeah. I know.”

So Steve rubbed his thumb along the head of Tony’s cock until it shone with precum, then did the same to himself – and then he pulled his foreskin past the head of his cock and over Tony’s. Tony’s hand stilled at the base of his cock as Steve engulfed him, and then he slowly unfurled his fingers and brought them to rest on Steve’s bicep.

“I don’t think I can come,” Tony said, the words leaden with regret. 

Steve closed his hand back around where they were now joined and leaned forward as far as he could to kiss Tony again.

“It’s okay,” he said again. “Just…be with me.”

What seemed like all the air in Tony’s lungs left him in a rush, and then his tongue was in Steve’s mouth again, and Steve was gently working his hand around where he was wrapped around Tony – finally together and in tandem, as they always should have been, as they already were when they weren’t pushing against each other – and Steve could taste Tony’s breath as he huffed and moaned, could feel Tony’s heels digging into his tailbone, and God, he couldn’t help but wonder if this is what a life with Tony might have been like if things had been different, if he’d just let Tony in in all the ways that counted years ago –

And then a mechanical but nonetheless rueful voice said from Tony's cast-aside sunglasses, " _Five more minutes, boss._ "

Steve dropped his forehead to Tony’s shoulder, but Tony was already shaking his head and closing a fist in Steve’s hair again.

“No,” Tony breathed. “Don’t stop yet. Don’t stop yet. Can you come?”

Steve nodded against Tony’s throat. His eyes stung, his throat constricted; he opened his mouth to answer but only the broken remains of whatever he might have said tumbled out in a dreadful sob.

“Come for me,” Tony said. “Please come for me.”

He was drowning all over again, but he quickened the pace of his hand, even his hips, and didn’t try to stifle the gasps and groans that left him. Tony wrapped his hand around the base of Steve’s cock and met his pace, and somehow, for the briefest but brightest moment, Steve suddenly felt whole – as though this was, in fact, exactly where he was meant to be, exactly how this was supposed to happen, and exactly how he was destined to go. 

His forehead slid against Tony’s throat, both of them slick with sweat and tears, as his back bowed and he came, and came, and came.

“Oh, God,” he said, as soon as he found himself again. He lifted his hips away from Tony’s and looked between them to see that they were still joined, let himself cherish the resistance as his cock refused to release Tony before reaching down to carefully pull his foreskin back and catch his come. Tony was quick to sit up as Steve sat back on his haunches, a little lost now without Tony inside him, but then Tony took hold of Steve’s wrist and ran his tongue, broad and flat, up Steve’s palm. He watched with all the intensity of a man with a minute left to live as Tony swallowed Steve’s come and then laced his fingers with Steve’s and pulled their hands over his heart, just to the left of the nanite housing on his chest.

—

Tony had expected the Gauntlet to be heavier, and he felt like a child who’d gotten caught playing dress-up with his father’s clothes as he pulled the too-large contraption over his hand. Voting on what had to be done had been fairly easy, though choosing who would be the one to wield the Gauntlet itself hadn’t been. Thor had made a strong case for it, but Tony and Steve ultimately convinced him that they couldn’t risk losing the last of the Asgardian royal line to the Gauntlet. And it was clear on many faces that more people had expected Steve to fight for it, as evidenced by their surprise and confusion when Tony donned it instead.

Rhodey and Natasha, Tony noticed, were silent and stone-faced, at least until Steve approached them.

“Keep Bucky out of trouble,” Tony heard him say. Natasha matched Steve’s watery smile with one of her own.

“No promises,” she said. They embraced, and she pressed a lingering kiss to his temple before they parted.

And then Steve turned to Tony and raised his left hand, palm facing out. Tony mirrored the motion, but the Gauntlet was too large to bring his fingertips to Steve’s, and so their hands hovered there, fractions of an inch apart, until Steve smiled, nodded, and pressed his hand to the Gauntlet’s palm. 

There was no dust, no light, no darkness, no fanfare. In one moment, Steve was standing there, and in next, Sam and Bucky were in his place. As Tony lowered his hand, he saw Wanda standing near Rhodey and Natasha; past them, where Rocket had been sulking alone, now stood almost the entire Guardians team.

He looked to his right, and there was Pepper; to her right stood Peter. Both of them were clearly bewildered, and they both began talking over each other as Tony let the Gauntlet slide from his hand to the lobby floor.

“Tony – ? Oh, my God, what happened? Where were you?”

“Mr. Stark! Did you – did you use the thingy? The Gauntlet?”

Tony reached for Pepper, and she quickly stepped into the circle of his arms, her cheeks already ruddy and eyes glazed with tears. When Peter hesitated, Tony waved him over until he stepped close enough for Tony to grab his shoulder and pull him in as well. Over the top of Peter’s head, Tony watched Sam, Barnes, and Wanda survey the now crowded room and then turn to Rhodey and Natasha. For a few moments, Tony couldn’t hear their conversation, but then Sam’s voice soon rose over the din.

“Where is Steve?”

Tony closed his eyes. His left shoulder was ablaze, and every beat of his heart wracked his chest and ribs with pain, but he stayed on his feet and held Pepper as tightly as he could muster. She still smelled like her lotion; Peter still reeked of ash; and both were still talking, trying to understand what was happening, but now all Tony could seem to hear was the blood pounding in his head and Sam’s voice.

“Where the fuck – what did he do? What did all of you _do_?”

—

He was standing on the edge of a cliff, his entire field of vision filled with an overcast sky stained orange and violet by a massive eclipse. He looked down, and at the bottom of the precipice was a vast, bare plane; it was difficult to tell for the distance, but he thought he could see a figure splayed across the ice-strewn stone. He could also see snow falling, but he couldn’t feel the flakes against his face, or even register the cold.

He turned. Behind him rose two gargantuan stone pillars; floating by the one to his left was an ephemeral, cloaked figure, and seated by the one to his right was Thanos. He was bereft of his armor and, it appeared, some of his _joie de vivre_ , as though losing the Gauntlet to the Avengers had cost him more than just his material victory.

“ _Hauptmann_ ,” the cloaked figure said, almost in genuine greeting.

“Skull,” Steve said. He made a point of looking Thanos up and down as the Titan stood and approached Steve with not inconsiderable effort.

“How noble,” Thanos ground out. “Your life for half the universe. Everyone will continue to suffer. And now, you’re here with us.” 

He waved toward the shade of Johann Schmidt.

“Indulge me,” he said. “Was it worth it?”

Steve took in the sight of the Red Skull, now as good as a ghost as far as Steve could tell; of Thanos, disgraced and exiled; of the barren mountain and unending sea that stretched around it; and his lips quirked in a satisfied half-smile as he returned his gaze to Thanos.

“Absolutely,” he said.


End file.
